WASHINGTON (AP) — A Massachusetts Air National Guard member who has emerged as a main person of interest in the disclosure of highly classified military documents on the Ukraine war was taken into custody Thursday by federal agents, according to a person familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it hadn’t been publicly announced.
Investigators believe that the guardsman, who specializes in intelligence, led the online chat group where the documents were posted. The guardsman was identified as 21-year-old Jack Teixeira.
FBI agents converged Thursday at Teixeira’s Massachusetts home and heavily armed tactical agents took a man wearing a T-shirt and shorts into custody outside the property.
It was not immediately clear if Teixeira had a lawyer who could speak on his behalf, and a phone message left at a number believed to belong to his mother was not immediately returned.
The emergence of Teixeira as the apparent primary suspect is bound to raise questions about how the highest-profile intelligence leak in years, one that continues to unfold with almost daily revelations of highly classified documents, could have been caused by such a young, low-ranking service member.
The Biden administration has scrambled for days to contain the fallout from the leaked information, which has publicized potential vulnerabilities in Ukraine’s air defense capabilities and exposed private assessments by allies on an array of intelligence matters.
The National Guard did not confirm his identity but said in a statement that, “We are aware of the investigation into the alleged role a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman may have played in the recent leak of highly-classified documents.”
Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, referred all questions about the case to the Justice Department. But he said: “We have rules in place. Each of us signs a nondisclosure agreement. This is a criminal act, a willful violation of those.”
The Biden administration has been working to assess the diplomatic and national security consequences of the leaked documents since they were first reported last week. A top Pentagon spokesman told reporters earlier this week that the disclosures present a “very serious risk to national security,” and the Justice Department opened an investigation to identify the person responsible.
“We’re getting close,” President Joe Biden told reporters in Ireland on Thursday. He said that though he was concerned that sensitive government documents had been disclosed, “there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence.”
The Justice Department declined to comment Thursday.
It’s possible the leak may have started on a site called Discord, a social media platform popular with people playing online games. The Discord site hosts real-time voice, video and text chats for groups and describes itself as a place “where you can belong to a school club, a gaming group, or a worldwide art community.”
In one of those forums, originally created to talk about a range of topics, members would debate the war in Ukraine. According to one member of the chat, an unidentified poster shared documents that the poster claimed were classified, first typing them out with the poster’s own thoughts, then, as of a few months ago, uploading images of folded papers.
